Update: Please read this post here.

We are now just a couple of weeks short of completing a full year of LiteraryForums.org! This is really fantastic. It all began when I started a book thread in LinuxQuestions.org and I thought: "why not start a board where people can just talk about books and stuff?" It was an idle thought that quickly gained momentum as I began exploring ways and means to create such a community site. After some frantic research on "forum software" I discovered phpBB, tried it out on my local server and was absolutely thrilled with it! And so began the journey of LiteraryForums.org.

The first thing was obviously to pick a good domain name. I wanted a serious book discussion website but at the same time I will admit frankly that I was not too keen on using the word "literature" or any of its derivatives. It makes it look a bit exclusive and tends to alienate the average book lover. However, to my dismay I found that most of the decent "book" domain names have already been registered. And to be sure, some of them were worthless cyber squatters. The long and the short of it was that it was really hard to find a decent domain name with the word "book" in it. I finally narrowed down my choices to "LiteraryReviews" or "LiteraryForums". I chose the second since it sounded a little more general than strictly talking about reviews. In hindsight, I am still wondering whether the word "literary" in the domain name was such a good idea, after all.

The second thing was finding a good hosting provider. Believe me, I was really struggling to find one. I searched the web for weeks in search of a quality hosting provider who didn't charge a hell of a lot of fees. It was tough going, but ultimately I found a host that was just right. One thing I discovered in a hurry was that Indian hosting providers have a hell of a long way to go before they can even begin challenging hosting providers in other parts of the world, but that's another story altogether.

Having set up the community, it was tough going, trying to get it started. Within the first few weeks, it was obvious that getting good content was going to be the key to promoting the site. There could be no shortcuts. There have been many ups and downs. Luckily however, we've got a few excellent members right from the beginning. Without their contribution, I have no doubt that LiteraryForums.org would have died quickly. I cannot find words to express my gratitude to those who participated in my vision of LiteraryForums.org and those who consider this site as a part of their daily routine. There were some desperate times when I was beginning to wonder whether creating a Wrestling Forum would have been a better idea. There were days and sometimes weeks when we went without activity on the forum. Yet, LiteraryForums.org has not died. It has grown slowly, yes, but it has grown. I now believe that having emerged from that phase, we will start growing a little faster. Reaching 100 members was the first and the most crucial landmark and I'm extremely glad that we got that behind us. Now let's aim for the next 100!

The key to the success of any community is not the quantity of activity, but the quality of activity. I am a firm believer in that. So far LiteraryForums.org has been blessed with some quality members who have not only found time to share their literary tastes, views and reviews with us, but also to contribute some original content for peer review. Such a process will surely enrich the content and the utility of this site, so I hope that we get more people doing this. By the way, it is only fair to add that we've been extremely lucky with having attracted very few spammers in this twelve months. It has made my job and the job of the site staff much easier.

On a personal note I have been busy of late with other things in my life such as education. It is becoming harder to find time to merely browse the site every day, leave alone contribute to the forum with my usual reviews on a regular basis. Having said that, I try to follow the reviews and discussions of other members with great enthusiasm. To be frank, I sometimes feel rather foolish when I check out the sheer range and quality of literary tastes of some of the other members. They will, I hope, continue to contribute on a regular basis.

So, all in all, LiteraryForums.org has come a long way in the first year... hopefully, we'll see a higher rate of growth in the second year!

Yours Sincerely,

Hari (Forum Host)

Another issue of the newsletter! A warm welcome to all my regular readers! In this issue, I will focus on a couple of issues. Let's take it from the top.

First of all, I recently rewrote all the board rules and policies of LiteraryForums.org in an attempt to cover more aspects and to clarify certain points. I am not an expert at framing rules but I did believe that as we grow bigger the rules need to keep adapting to situations as they arise. With LiteraryForums.org now reaching 100+ members I think I owe it to the regular members to know what my vision of LiteraryForums.org is.

So why did I rewrite and reframe the forum rules? Quite simple. My goal is to make LiteraryForums.org the friendliest book community on the internet and by friendly, I mean friendly to all age groups. In other words, the content that appears on LiteraryForums.org should be suitable for under-13. Last month, we did have a couple of instances where a member did submit content that really did not go well with the spirit of LiteraryForums.org. After consultation with the moderators, I decided that we needed to update the rules to make it absolutely clear on our official stance on the issue. It woke me up to the danger of allowing adult content to slowly filter through without having a policy that strictly prevented it. I wanted no ambiguity on that! To keep this place clean we need your support and I'm sure most of you will agree with this policy.

On another note, I have joined an MBA course and shall be busy six days a week. Though the schedule is not very tight, I shall still be busy enough not to be able to visit the forums frequently. This means that I'm looking for an extra moderator (if needed). The post is currently vacant though I have a couple of names in mind (let me not reveal them at this stage ). Do Let me know if you have any suggestions in this regard and your specific choice if you have anybody in mind. I am discussing this with the current moderation team at this moment and I shall probably appoint a new moderator soon. Your votes will have a say in the final reckoning, so here's your chance to take part in the decision-making process!

Finally, as usual let me end this with a big thanks to those who've made LiteraryForums.org a success!

Yours Sincerely,

Hari (Forum Host)

I am not going to be all sugary and sweet in this issue of the Community Newsletter. Rather it's time for some honest straight-talk. Why not admit it? There is definitely a tinge of disappointment that LiteraryForums.org has not really taken off the way it should have.

About the time of the previous issue of the newsletter, I had high hopes that the LiteraryForums.org community would be more and more active following the increase in membership and the burst of activity we saw in June. But my hope keeps waning with each passing day and we seem to have come back all the way to square one.

I have put in a lot of effort to keep the community active, but at the present moment, participation has dwindled to insignificant proportions... and that's a pity because we have been blessed with some excellent content thanks to our regular members. I have no idea why activity has dwindled to such abysmal proportions. It's very disheartening both to me and our faithful regulars after having put in so much of hard work to keep the community going and accelerate its growth...

Consider the facts. In the last few weeks, we haven't had more than 10 posts or so in the forums and with each passing day I see no new members and virtually no activity. And this isn't anything new. Right from the beginning, we've never really seen any kind of steady increase in community participation. Yet the site traffic has been increasing by leaps and bounds.

I had already commented on this phenomenon earlier, but it continues to baffle me! And I'm sure it continues to baffle all our regular members as well.

I have been extraordinarily patient in this. But I shall soon be driven to the policy where the site content will be accessible only to registered members. Guests shall not be able to view any content. Why should people take advantage of the site without actually participating actively in the community, which is what LiteraryForums.org is all about? I think too many people just lurk on the forums, read stuff and then leave... this has got to be stopped.

Please do think about it. I request feedback from all of you before I decide on such a drastic move.

Finally this seems to be an ideal time to express my heartfelt thanks to those who *have* contributed regularly to the community: floppywhopper, our moderator and azrael26, one of the senior members of LiteraryForums.org. Floppy has been a very level-headed person, providing me with guidance and assistance in managing the forum while Azrael has contributed a lot of useful reviews to the community. Both of them have been extraordinarily supportive of LiteraryForums.org over a period of time and I just felt that it would not be right to take their efforts for granted. Thanks, guys!

Yours Sincerely,

Hari (Forum Host)

Another edition of the LiteraryForums.org newsletter! And this comes at a very auspicious time indeed for we've seen some good activity in the month of June. It has been a good period for LiteraryForums and I'm glad to be back after a period of illness. We've had quite a few new members join up as well and this is quite an encouraging sign.

Changes? The most obvious change is the change in colours and design. To an extent, this was prompted by the unfortunate loss of data which ruined all my good work earlier. I was truly disappointed that a lot of painstaking work was lost because I hadn't taken any backups. Now I have decided to make some changes anyway although these new changes aren't as comprehensive as the changes I had made and planned to implement earlier. However, changes were long overdue and I'm glad to have made some of them at this point. On a minor note, there has been a forum security upgrade as well.

Another aspect is the forum look and feel. It has been my desire from the very beginning to try and change as much of it as possible to give LiteraryForums.org a unique touch and in this regard I have decided that the forum images need complete replacement. Needless to say, this will take some time, but the effort will be worth it. The advantage here is that the new images will match the new theme quite well.

On a general note, I hope that this is just the beginning of all the activity! There was a perceptible increase in forum activity last month and I hope this continues. With more users submitting original content, reviews and discussions, LiteraryForums.org can only become richer. And we're getting closer to reaching 100 members! A significant milestone!

A big 'thank you' to all those members who have made this possible!

Yours Sincerely,

Hari (Forum Host)